Topic Guide: First World War

First World War topics covered here include: Imperial War Museums,a timeline of the Great War, trenches, poppies, weapons, politicians, women, Christmas truce, peace, war artists, and poppies.Imperial War MuseumThe Imperial War Museum (also known as IWM) is a great place to start learning more about all kinds of conflicts in Britain and the Commonwealth from the 20th century. It's the most important museum in the UK on the First World War. They have some really useful information on their website, including a dedicated section about the First World War.

The First World War began around 100 years ago in 1914, and ended in 1918. Although it happened so long ago, we are still connected to it today. You can find out how some of the ways in which we are still connected in this short film from the Imperial War Museum.

Women’s rolesThe National Archives has put together an interesting case study investigating women, work and the war
and examines the evidence to explore how important this was in helping
women getting the vote (which is known as ‘Suffrage’) in 1918. You can discover more about the struggle for women's suffrage with our Topic Guide.

War artistsWar artists are a specific kind of artist that depict what war is like and how it affects people. Some artists, like Bruce Bairnsfather, sketched cartoons in the trenches. You can see some examples of Bairnsfather's work on Show Me's collections page.

In Flanders Field is a poem written by John McCrae in 1915 as a personal reaction to the death of his friend. This poem is the reason poppies are a symbol of remembrance. Here is an early poppy wreath from the Kegworth Museum in Leicestershire.

You can listen to a recording from Soundcloud of someone reading the poem here.

The Guelph Museum in Canada has a handwritten manuscript of the poem, which you can see here.